Working Families Blog is the official blog of New York Working Families, covering issues and politics important to the working families of New York.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Good Health and Good Jobs Go Together

This week was notable for what didn't make the news: The Chicken Little complaints of a fast food industry front group that some businesses would be disadvantaged if they had to compete on a level playing field. (Think about that for a second - businesses that oppose the Fair Share for Health Care Act feel like they deserve an unfair advantage over responsible local businesses.)

"The Working Families Party has weighed in on New York's proposed Fair Share for Health Care Act, producing a report that says the bill will create jobs while extending health coverage to the uninsured... The Working Families study predicts that the proposed legislation will create between 2,100 and 21,600 jobs for New Yorkers and offer health insurance to more than 450,000 of the state's uninsured who are working for large employers."

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Sounds like a great idea, just like "community ratings" laws passed in NY 10 years ago were a great idea too in the market for individual health insurance policies. But they raise costs on a minority of people whom you never hear about, driving them into the ranks of the uninsured or out of business in the case of the marginally profitable. But if you never hear from them, do you care?

Please support repeal of community ratings laws in NY. Read these and reconsider your your support for these policies and mandates you support:

Likewise, can you work to make the costs of insurance lower if you're going to mandate it on anyone? Do we really need to force everyone to buy coverage for acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic treatments that make plans more unaffordable? Such measures only line the pockets of these industries under the guise of "protecting" New Yorkers. How Orwellian. What a scam.

And now you support a measure to force companies--I don't care how large your target is--to buy them at absurd prices. Maybe there wouldn't be such opposition if the morsel of cost being forced down the throat of businesses were not so large.

And not every employer of more than 100 employees can be assumed to be able to afford health insurance for workers. Increased costs of any kind at any level always force the most marginally profitable companies--not mega corps--to close their doors, and yes they exist. So you target a few mega corps and help push how many more less well known employers toward the brink of closure who in the aggregate employ more persons anyway?

Please, real workers need real help, and not of the red tape kind either. We can always establish a state high-risk pool for those who cannot get insurance. Don't wreck the market for insurance for everyone else. It's not fair. Thank you.